University of Oregon. Ecosystem Workforce Program2016-01-282016-01-282013https://hdl.handle.net/1794/195912 pagesWith approximately 9,400 professionals working in nearly every one of the nation’s 3,071 counties and an emphasis on voluntary, incentives-based approaches to conservation, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has significantly influenced private working lands management. NRCS conservation programs, which typically deliver financial and technical assistance on a landowner-by-landowner basis, have been criticized as “random acts of conservation” that lack strategic vision for delivering landscape-scale outcomes. To address this, the 2008 Farm Bill created new initiatives to allow partner organizations to propose strategic, multi-landowner projects that address priority resource concerns within specific hydrographic or geographic boundaries. The Three Sisters Irrigation District in the Upper Deschutes River Basin of Central Oregon used one of these programs, the Agricultural Water Enhancement Program (AWEP), as one source of money to bring pressurized water to irrigators within the district and restore water to a historically dewatered creek. The McKenzie Canyon project reveals some of the relative strengths and weaknesses of one of NRCS’s new approaches.en-USCreative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-USOther